Almost The best PC Gamepad Evar [spiny]

My Logitech Wingman Cordless gamepad died. A loss I still mourn, but I'd be buggered if I was going to shell out another £30 on one, so here's the little recipie I cooked up:
Ingredients

• 1 Xbox Controller Extension Cable
• 1 USB lead (I picked mine up from the bargain bin in PC world)
• 1 Soldering Iron With Solder
• Electrical Insulating Tape
• Some thin wire
• Aluminum Foil
• Electricity (For Soldering Iron)

Method

1. Lop the Xbox end off* the extension cable & remove a few cm of the sheath. Peel back the shielding layer.
2. Cut four of the wires to staggered lengths and strip each wire a few mil. The fifth wire (yellow) cut back to the length of the outer casing. It won't be going anywhere any more. Staggering the lengths of the individual wires ensures your less likeley to get a short accross them and it'll make the resulting cable neater.
3. Lop off the USB A end of your cable (The PC spade connector end) and stagger & strip the wires inside.
4. Tin the ends of all wires with your solder & iron then solder red to red, white to white etc.
5. Wrap each one in insulating tape.
6. Wrap the whole bundle in tape.
7. Fold back any shielding you have.
8. Cut a length of aluminum foil to the length of your join and wrap two or three times round the cable.
9. Wrap a some wire the length of your join round the foil. The foil & wire replaces the shielding you destroyed in making the join. It stop your cable being a big ass antenna.
10. (Optionally) Wrap the rest of the aluminuim foil round your head & the heads of your family & pets. This stops the aliens probing your feeble human minds.
11. Wrap the lot up with bags of tape.
12. Download the driver & setup utility from here
13. Connect up & at the prompt to install a driver for 'XBOX Game Controller, do 'Specific location', 'I'll install', 'Have Disk' and point it at the driver you downloaded.
15. You'll also get an second install prompt for a HID compliant game controller. Just go with all the defaults for that.
16. Calibrate & go and kick ass.

Works great, rumble effects & everything. You can turn these down in the setup utility, where you'll also want to select the 'enhanced analog sticks' checkbox to get better deadzone operation.

Scorchio!